Body Map of My Life

One

• Location: Thirty degree angle from the center of my face, nestled in my hairline.
  
• Cause: Spending the summer before my sophomore year in high school sitting by my pool.
  
• Diagnosis: Sun Spot
  
• Treatment: "Catherine, wear more sunscreen and don't sit out in the sun or else you'll get wrinkles!" - My Mother
  
• Follow-up: Hairdressers always comment on my beauty mark and its odd placement. If a boy plays with my hair, they stop to take a look at it, usually an awkward conversation.  

Two

• Location: Right forearm, cannot confirm actual location because as I get older it tends to migrate.
  
• Cause: The phenomena of how one gets a birthmark.
  
• Diagnosis: "You probably pooped on your arm when you were in Mom's stomach and it stained." - My Sister
  
• Treatment: Tanning, because the darker my skin is the less noticeable it is.
  
• Follow up: My dad used to own a restaurant on Cherry and Speedway. On Friday nights Astronomers from the U of A came and drank beer. One night when I was seven, a drunk astronomer told me that my birthmark was a "constellation of freckles." 
  

Three 

• Location: Above the knuckle of my left ring finger.
  
• Cause: My father was trying to teach me how to ride a bike in elementary school. I told him to not let go of me while I was riding. When he did so, without telling me, I proceeded to run into a mailbox, cut my finger, and fall into the street. After that I stopped trying to learn how to ride a bike, and I still don't know how.
  
• Diagnosis: Minor cut on my finger.
  
• Treatment: Sesame Street band aids and Neosporin.  
  
• Follow up: A couple years later I got a freckle right across from it on the same finger. The scar now has a friend.
  

Four

• Location: Belly Button.
  
• Cause: Very nice Halo employee, Brian, plunged a long curved needle through my belly button. 
  
• Diagnosis: Belly Button Piercing
  
• Treatment: Use H2Ocean three to six times a day, stay away from beds with animal hair, do not touch it with dirty hands, don't sleep on your stomach, no swimming or hot-tubbing...
  
• Follow up: The next day I was sitting in my therapist's office and she looked at my stomach and made a strange face. I looked down and blood was emerging through my shirt. I proceeded to pull my shirt up and there was a large pool of blood just hanging out in my belly button. After my appointment, my sister took me back to Halo, where they told me that I was probably anemic and should take vitamins. One month later I had a bleeding pustule on the inside of my belly button. My mom took me back to Halo, and they told me that I was probably anemic and that it was scar tissue. Two weeks ago the same sort of pustule appeared on the top part of the piercing, I went back to Halo, and they told me the same thing. I have an appointment to test if I am anemic on Wednesday. 
  

Five

• Location: Right Foot.
  
• Cause: I was making quesdillas and put too much oil in the pan. When I plopped the quesdilla in the pan, oil jumped out of the pan and onto my foot. I could hear the oil sizzle on my skin.
  
• Diagnosis: Second degree burn.
  
• Treatment: Running frantically around the kitchen trying to find Vanilla Extract (if put on soon enough, the vanilla will stop blistering). Then icing my foot, putting Aloe Vera on the burns, and a series of bandages.
  
• Follow up: "Why didn't you wear shoes while you were cooking?" - My Father. Does everyone where shoes when they cook? As well as numerous comments from strangers asking why I turned my foot into a pinata (there was quite a lot of bandages). I also had an excuse to wear flip flops to work.